Upper Manhattan Nest for a Mother and Son

The Greenwich Village apartment where Laura Martin lived with her son, Dax Roy, couldn’t have been more convenient. It was across Sixth Avenue from his elementary school. On school mornings, Ms. Martin would walk Dax across the street and then return home.

The rent on their 1,100-square-foot two-bedroom was around $6,000 a month. Neighbors who moved into the building more recently “who had the same apartment were paying like $8,000 or something,” said Ms. Martin, an inventor and product designer in her 40s, who, having endured tiny kitchens, invented a magnetic spice rack. Her goal was to purchase a similar space for a lower monthly outlay.

“At first I objected to moving because I liked my old home and, you know, there’s no place like home,” said Dax, an actor who is now 11. But he was finishing elementary school and would be entering middle school in a different part of town, so it was a good time for a change.

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779 RIVERSIDE The Crillon Court was in the target area, the Audubon Park Historic District. But its apartments seemed expensive.CreditChester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

Ms. Martin, who is separated from Dax’s father, looked around Greenwich Village and nearby Chelsea. But she was unwilling to pay $1 million for a small two-bedroom or a one-bedroom where she or her son would have to sleep in the living room. She preferred to put down roots in a new neighborhood. And because of Red, a Maltese-poodle cross, a dog-friendly building was a must.

The Audubon Park Historic District, which includes part of Riverside Drive in the West 150s, beckoned. A friend had moved there four years ago. And “Tio Papi,” a movie in which Dax played the youngest of six children, had been filmed there three years ago. The buildings were grand and handsome, in a neighborhood with a kind of bohemian vibe. “That’s what the Village used to be,” Ms. Martin said.

She went there to visit the six-story Crillon Court, built in the mid-1920s and recently restored. Two-bedroom condominium units were priced in the $600,000s, which seemed high. “I preferred something before it is renovated so I could do it,” said Ms. Martin, a graduate of Parsons the New School for Design.

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142 EDGECOMBE A newly renovated condo was more in the ballpark costwise. But the area lacked the ambience of the historic district.CreditChester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

The agents she consulted were puzzled when she asked about that part of town. So the friend who lived in the neighborhood referred her to the Bohemia Realty Group, which specializes in Upper Manhattan.

Beth Gittleman, an agent there, showed her a renovated apartment in an eight-unit condo for $555,000 on low-rise Edgecombe Avenue, which is southeast of Audubon Park. Monthly charges were in the mid-$500s. It was a “nicely done but out-of-a-catalog kind of thing,” Ms. Martin said.

“She wasn’t into the area,” Ms. Gittleman said. “She had her heart set on Riverside Drive.”

So they headed north to a six-story condominium conversion on Riverside Drive in Hamilton Heights in the high West 140s. A two-bedroom there was $595,000, with monthly charges of around $800. The views were of brick walls. “It wasn’t quite there. I knew we could do better,” Ms. Martin said.

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710 RIVERSIDE Another apartment, a two-bedroom in a prewar building a bit south of the target area, had a view of brick walls.CreditChester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

Ms. Gittleman persuaded her to visit co-op buildings, not just condos. “You are going to get more space for your price,” Ms. Gittleman said. “Co-ops up here are different from downtown. There is a little more leniency.”

At a grand 1911 doorman co-op building back in the Audubon Park Historic District, Ms. Martin saw a two-bedroom with around 950 square feet. The asking price was $479,000, with maintenance of around $1,200 a month. The building had a liberal sublet policy, potentially advantageous if Dax needed to move temporarily for an acting job. The apartment had original details and a renovated kitchen. The view “looks like West Side Story, all the fire escapes,” Ms. Martin said. She knew she had found their new home.

“There was other interest,” Ms. Gittleman said. Wanting to minimize chances of being outbid, Ms. Martin offered $484,000, and was accepted. She, Dax and Red arrived earlier in the summer.

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RIVERSIDE DRIVE Back in the Audubon Park Historic District, things came together in an early 20th-century co-op building.CreditChester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

Dax has the master bedroom. The bedrooms are at opposite ends of the apartment, “so I sort of get my own side of the house,” he said. “In my old apartment, we had a huge living room but my room was tiny, and now I have a big room but the living room is medium-sized. I get to keep a lot more stuff in my room and I won’t be crammed.”

Ms. Martin, whose home is often filled with guests, said she is not used to living with only one bathroom. She is decorating around the crooked floors and bulky radiators. Cell reception inside is not ideal.

Nor is the apartment’s combination washer-dryer. “I am ready to throw it out the window,” Ms. Martin said. “I put some clothes in there and they came out smelly and hard.” Instead she uses the building’s “nice big laundry room with industrial-size washers and dryers, and there’s something to be said for four loads at once.”

She and her son love their new neighborhood, filled with Dominican restaurants and dotted with intriguing offerings, like the 18-month-old Taszo Espresso Bar for the area’s emerging cappuccino-drinking demographic.

The family’s living expenses have plunged: Housing costs are less than half of what they were. In her new neighborhood, dry-cleaning and pressing a pleated skirt costs just $4.50. “I almost fell over,” Ms. Martin said.

She accompanies Dax downtown to school and back by subway and bus. “I like doing it,” she said. In the past, other parents “would walk their kids to school and have these conversations, but we lived across the street. Now we get to have conversations and talk about stuff, and it’s actually my favorite time of the day.”

Correction:

An earlier version of this article quoted incorrectly from comments by Laura Martin about her neighbors and the prices they were paying for apartments similar to hers. She said tenants who moved into the building more recently “were paying $8,000 or something.” They were not rent-regulated tenants who “were paying $800 or something.”